Senate Says No to Retreat

WASHINGTON — The Democratic Party's presidential field is dividing over the question of funding American soldiers in Iraq, with senators Obama of Illinois and Clinton of New York voting with an 82-to-16 majority for a Republican resolution against cutting any money for troops in the field. Senators Biden of Delaware and Dodd of Connecticut were in the minority.

The vote, along with the narrow 50-to-48 defeat of a binding resolution calling for the withdrawal of soldiers from Iraq by March 31, 2008, was a major victory for the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, a Republican of Kentucky who quietly worked for two months to persuade his caucus to vote together.

Assisted by two Democrats, Senator Pryor of Arkansas and Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, and by an independent who caucuses with the Democrats, Senator Lieberman of Connecticut, the Republicans defeated a resolution sponsored by the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, a Democrat of Nevada, which would mandate that the military begin a retreat from Iraq within 120 days of its passage. They did so even though a strong hawk, Senator McCain, a Republican of Arizona, was absent. He was in Iowa campaigning for the presidency.

The victory for the GOP also sends a warning to the House Democratic leadership, currently drafting a supplemental troop funding bill that would also impose timelines for withdrawal.

The Democrats yesterday, behind the scenes, were glum. Following the votes on three war resolutions (a Democratic-sponsored resolution supporting troop funding and money for veterans passed with only two dissenters), Mr. Obama voiced regret. "I am disappointed that today Senate Republicans blocked a redeployment plan, similar to the Iraq De-escalation Act I introduced, that would set a target date of March 31, 2008, to remove our combat troops from Iraq," he said.

Mrs. Clinton yesterday offered no public statements on the resolutions and did not debate the proposals on the floor.

In the debates preceding the vote, Mr. McConnell told his colleagues that the Reid resolution "will regrettably, prove Osama bin Laden right. This is the vote he's been waiting for." Meanwhile, Mr. Reid appealed to the American people. "My hope, my prayer, is that we will stand with the American people. We must have a new direction in Iraq," he said.

Asked for a reaction yesterday after the votes, the communications director for Mr. Reid, Jim Manley, did his best to spin the results in his favor.

"Republicans are willing to march lock step with the president over a cliff," he said. "They made a strategic decision to stick with a failed policy. We feel very good about the vote."

This view however, represents a concession that the Democrats' earlier strategy of picking off Republicans to support resolutions critical of the troop surge in Baghdad and Anbar had failed. As early as December, leading Democrats like Senator Biden, a Democrat from Delaware, acknowledged that they could not stop the Iraq war unless enough Republicans also voiced their demands to the White House. Yesterday, only Senator Smith, the Republican from Oregon who first signaled shortly after the November elections that his patience with the war was waning, voted with the Democrats on the Reid resolution.

Meanwhile, other Republicans who voiced dissent from the troop surge when the president proposed it on January 10 voted with the president's party. One such Republican was Senator Brownback from Kansas. Mr. Brownback, who is running for his party's presidential nomination, switched emphasis yesterday, attacking Democrats. "The withdrawal resolution presents a choice between pursuing victory and calling for retreat," he said. "I believe victory is still possible and that failure is unacceptable."

"The Democrats united the Republican caucus," the communications director for Senator McConnell, Don Stewart, said yesterday. "By making this a binding resolution that tied the president's hands and told the enemy the exact date we would leave, we kept all but one." A senior Senate Republican aide yesterday said Mr. McConnell's strategy on the war resolution was to listen to the wide range of views of his members and deliberately to avoid enforcing party discipline on votes for resolutions, focusing instead on procedural unity to allow a vote on the resolution that won the day on troop funding.

That resolution, sponsored by Senator Gregg, a Republican from New Hampshire, stated, "No funds should be cut off or reduced for American troops in the field which would result in undermining their safety or their ability to complete their assigned missions." It is a direct rebuke to the strategy favored by the left wing of the Democratic Party, which seeks to impose conditions on funds in the supplemental bill funding the troop surge.

For nearly two months, Mr. Reid would not agree to give the resolution a vote on the floor, leading Mr. McConnell to muster a filibuster of the earlier non-binding resolutions. Mr. Reid, however, relented, at first last Thursday, according to Mr. Manley. The final tally on the Gregg resolution, of 82 in favor and only 16 opposed, surprised even Republicans. The minority included Mr. Reid, as well as presidential aspirants such as Mr. Dodd and Mr. Biden. Senator Schumer of New York voted with Senators Clinton and Obama in the majority, as did the former Democratic presidential nominee, Senator Kerry of Massachusetts, who was criticized by President Bush during the campaign for an earlier vote against funding for the war.

Part of the surprise came during the floor debate. Mr. Reid in his speech signaled his members were free to vote their conscience. "There is no caucus position on this," he said. When asked what happened, Mr. Manley said he did not wish to get into those details.

Democrats may take some solace in the one Democratic resolution they did manage get passed yesterday. That resolution, sponsored by Senator Murray, a Democrat from Washington State, affirms the role of Congress in setting war policy while pledging not to cut funds for soldiers or veterans.